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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Is openness to experience the same as flexible thinking? Probably not, but closedness to experience is certainly farther away than openness. Although the research reported below targets older adults, I would guess that the same process works for younger adults too.

"Abstract: The present study inves­ti­gated whether an inter­ven­tion aimed to increase cog­ni­tive abil­ity in older adults also changes the per­son­al­ity trait of open­ness to expe­ri­ence. Older adults com­pleted a 16-week pro­gram in induc­tive rea­son­ing train­ing sup­ple­mented by weekly cross­word and Sudoku puz­zles. Changes in open­ness to expe­ri­ence were mod­eled across four assess­ments over 30 weeks using latent growth curve mod­els. Results indi­cate that par­tic­i­pants in the inter­ven­tion con­di­tion increased in the trait of open­ness com­pared with a wait­list con­trol group. The study is one of the first to demon­strate that per­son­al­ity traits can change through nonpsy­chophar­mo­co­log­i­cal interventions."
From SharpBrains.com

For example: If you're locked into negative self-talk, learning inductive reasoning (aka problem-solving thinking), doing cross word puzzles, learning Spanish or kick boxing, might bring about the similar flexibility of thinking and openness to experience. And, encourage you to be more hang loose, flexible enough in your thinking to say to yourself, "Let go of this silly waste of my time; negative self-talk. I'm smart, a realist, and though not perfect, I'm a sharp cookie. Give NST a break, give it up and move on." Change creates change. New experiences create new perceptions. Acquisition of new habits helps eliminate old habits.

WELCOME TO IWO!

It's the beginning of the third year of intelligentwomenonly.com I've started off with some retrospective posts as a reminder to me and you that this blog started out focused on understanding and eliminating negative self-talk. Not surprising since my current book project is Handbook #l for Intelligent Women: Break the Negative Self-Talk Habit.Strong beliefs underlie intelligentwomenonly.com posts:• Research based advice/suggestions/content contain more accurate facts and greater value than pop psychology.• Intelligent girls and women are more likely than intelligent boys and men to limit themselves because of their self-talk.• Negative self-talk is a bad habit, not a neurosis or psychosis. Unfortunately, it's normal in a majority of girls and women.

•The negative self-talk habit has to be eliminated before realistic (or positive thinking) can be learned and maintained.• Positive self-talk cannot create a positive reality even if the negative self-talk habit is broken.• Self-help approaches can work for changing thinking, feeling, and behavioral habits.In the next nine months of 2012, I would love to be able to tell you that the book will be published this year or next. In the meantime I've become intrigued with new brain research about thinking and emotions, particularly applicable and useful for and to women. I'll post no more about gender differences, unless they're wildly interesting, and more about intelligent women's psychology, thinking, feelings, and out front actions. I've added a new red subject box, Writers and Writing, targeted specifically for writers, of course!

I'm still looking for some controversy, disagreement, new information from readers. I'm open to your thoughts about what you'd like to hear more about — or less about!Please send me your comments, suggestions, questions, criticisms — all of you intelligent women out there!